Canada has slipped slightly in the UN rankings of human progress as slower advances in areas such as education deprived this country of bragging rights as one of the top 10.

The United Nations’ annual human development index for 2012 puts Canada in 11th place – now passed by Japan, and just ahead of South Korea and Hong Kong.

Norway ranked the highest in the index – which measures development by combining income and other basic indicators of progress such as life expectancy and years of schooling – with Australia and the United States just behind.

Canada boasted that it topped the rankings in the 1990s. It was sixth when the 2011 index was released last year – although the ratings are not comparable. Data for 2011 have been updated, and the methodology was shifted, and the UN calculates that using the current method, Canada should have been 10th in the 2011 report.

“I wouldn’t get too exercised about whether it’s one, or 11, or 15,” Helen Clark, administrator of the United Nations development program, said in an interview. “The truth is, Canada’s people enjoy an access to health and education, and a level of income, which is the envy of the world.”

Like most countries near the top of the list, Canada continues to improve its human-development ratings, but at a slower rate than lower-development countries, such as emerging markets, where incomes and education indicators have jumped.

However, in recent years, Canada’s advances have been slower than most of the 47 countries in the “very high” human development category.

One reason is education. Canadians’ average number of years of schooling has stayed flat at 12.3 since 2005. And on another measure used in the index, the expected years of schooling – how many years of education the average child entering school can expect to receive – Canada lags behind comparable countries, such as Australia and the United States.

Another area where Canada slips is inequality. A version of the index adjusted for inequality sees Canada drop to 15th, behind such countries as Iceland, Denmark and Slovenia, mainly because of the high level of disparity in incomes. The United States, third on the overall index, drops to 16th when its score is adjusted for inequality. Life expectancy, education, and particularly, incomes, are much lower for U.S. hispanics and African Americans.

Ms. Clark, a former prime minister of New Zealand, said inequality is a concern, and has come in part with the unequal benefits of globalization in the West – and she noted the titans of commerce she meets each year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, are concerned about it, too.

“The business leaders are worried about it. You could say they’re worried about it because it’s a threat to the existing economic model, but I think it’s more than that. I think it goes back to that insight from Henry Ford, who said if the working man has money in his pocket … they’ll buy more cars. For the economy to move round, you need people to have spending power.”

Over all, the index shows many of the countries with the lowest scores rising the fastest over the past decade, including Afghanistan – because incomes have doubled and average education levels, though still low, are increasing quickly.

The UN’s human development report for 2012, titled The Rise of the South, paints a picture already well-known in economic terms: that emerging countries, such as Brazil, India and China, are rapidly advancing – the HDI shows that is true not only in economic terms, but in human indicators like education and health as well. And it extends beyond emerging giants to many nations that were once poor – in fact, no country has registered declines in their scores on the index over the past decade.

It also finds that globalization, on the whole, is a driver for development. Countries that registered strong advances on the index also increased their links to the global economy, with a much greater share of their economy coming from international trade. Many of the “low human development” countries with slow advances are landlocked countries far from global markets.

“The policies which seek to protect and close in actually limit opportunity for your people,” Ms. Clark said. “You have to step out into the brave world and open yourself to trade and investment. That’s the reality of our age and times.

“If you look at China, for example, it’s an export-oriented economy. It needs an open world trading system for it to prosper, and there has to be a lesson in that.”

But the UNDP report also finds that active social polices – what it calls a “developmental state” – are a key driver of advances.

Spending on education and health yields advances in human-development indicators. And advances in health and education affect the economy. For example, past advances in these areas are linked to increases in foreign direct investment – in other words, better health and education attract money into a nation’s economy.

South Korea, which has developed rapidly since the 1960s, continues to rise rapidly up the index, even now that it’s near the top of the list, fuelled by improvements in its education system and investments in infrastructure. The better-educated population will not only have higher incomes, but will be healthier in their old age, the report suggests.

“If you look at the Korean model, what did it prioritize? Education, education, education. It prioritized infrastructure – put in place very modern infrastructure,” Ms. Clark said.

Interesting that the business leaders are worried about inequality while their lackeys seem to think it's just fine. But then the business leaders are the ones creating the inequality, so what's up with that?

DanSC
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Posts: 4183

Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 9:19 am

I blame Manitoba.

matwilson
Active Member

Posts: 130

Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 9:24 am

I think we need to eliminate income taxes completely. That will fix everything.

fifeboy
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Posts: 6393

Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 11:16 am

DanSC wrote:

I blame Manitoba.

I blame the Liberals. If they hadn't done such a good job than Stevo wouldn't have been able to drag us down to his level.

Zipperfish
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Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 12:24 pm

DanSC wrote:

I blame Manitoba.

We all do. Screw you, Manitoba.

Gunnair
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Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 12:37 pm

I blame pot prohibition and that insidious back yard pool culture.

bootlegga
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Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 1:07 pm

Nothing to see here...

It sounds a lot worse than it is because the scoring goes down to the three decimal places. At the very least, numbers 9 - 11 are essentially a tie (Japan & Switzerland who sit just ahead of us are literally .001 and .002 ahead of us), and I doubt that New Zealand with its eight hundredths better rating is that much better off than we are.

But saying Japan beat us my .001% wouldn't get any attention now would it?

ShepherdsDog
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Posts: 37555

Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 1:22 pm

I think Ireland's current economic woes make Canada a nicer place to be. The Dutch also face ethnic unrest with its growing Muslim population.....sorry I'll still take Canada and chances are the locals residing in Eire and the Tuliptown would pick us too if given the chance.

andyt
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Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 1:22 pm

How about saying that we used to be #1? And that we drop to 15th place if inequality is factored in?

bootlegga
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Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 1:33 pm

If you look at the rankings going back to the 80s, it's not that we've fallen - our rankings are actually better than the 90s when we were ranked first - it's that everyone else has caught up to us.

But as I said, saying that the world has caught up to us isn't nearly as catchy a headline as "Canada falls to 11th".

andyt
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Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 1:34 pm

They've actually surpassed us. Too much smugness can do that.

bootlegga
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Posts: 19057

Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 1:39 pm

If you want to place blame on this, I'd look to the decade's worth of austerity in the 90s as a reason why other places surpassed us. All those cuts to health care and education probably are a big factor in our declining score. Perhaps if we'd kept spending like drunken sailors (aka Europeans) we'd still be in first place on this list.

Thanks but no thanks.

As painful as it was, I'll take our fiscal prudence over the debt levels most European countries have. You gotta pay off the credit card sooner or later...

Jonny_C
Forum Super Elite

Posts: 2104

Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 1:55 pm

There are people making a living generating these numbers, which can change significantly if one makes small changes in parameters and/or weighting.

The rankings actually mean very little, but we in Canada have a hard time ignoring them because we have a penchant for liking equally unreliable measures when they put us at or near the top.

Groupings would make more sense than rankings, but it would still be a mug's game.